DC’s Blackest Night Gives Way to Brightest Day

DC Comics’ all-star limited series Blackest Night housed more war, zombies and darkness than even the Dark Knight could stomach. But that doesn’t mean DC’s follow-up series, Brightest Day, is going to be all warm and fuzzy when it lands in April.

“Brightest Day is not a banner or a vague catch-all direction for the DC Universe, it is a story,” writer of both series Geoff Johns explained Thursday on DC’s blog The Source. “Nor is Brightest Day a sign that the DC Universe is going to be all about ‘light and brighty’ superheroes.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with the light approach. It has been enlightening and entertaining in the savvy and sometimes surreal television series Batman: The Brave and the Bold. And while Blackest Night showed off Johns’ uncanny ability to dream up gripping worlds bursting with ultraviolence, it was nevertheless soaked with overkill.

A break from that desensitization could work wonders. Aquaman will get the treatment next, as David Finch’s cover of Brightest Day‘s second issue (pictured) illustrates.

“Brightest Day is about second chances,” Johns said. “I think it’s been obvious from day one that there are major plans for the heroes and villains from Aquaman to take center stage in the DC Universe, among many others, post-Blackest Night.”

Obvious is right. Wired.com readers called for a reiteration of Aquaman’s television series in our recent sci-fi reboot gallery. Throw in our mounting enviropocalypse, and it’s a situation optimal for the return of a superhero from Earth’s teeming deep.